


like lightning

by Catstycam



Series: quiet dangerous girls [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, for finwean ladies week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26919511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catstycam/pseuds/Catstycam
Summary: itarillë is soft and sweet, gentle touches and demure smiles.*itarillë to idril, and the moments in between. or, sparkling brilliance and the ice.
Relationships: Aredhel & Idril Celebrindal, Idril Celebrindal & Turgon of Gondolin
Series: quiet dangerous girls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928044
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	1. ice

**Author's Note:**

> look at me i have a sequel i'm so proud.  
> (convienently ignoring how ong it took for me to put this up.)

_Itarillë_ is a nice name. That's what everyone tells you, at least- not special, not fiery, not the name of someone that will be great. Itarillë is soft and sweet, gentle touches and demure smiles. _Sparkling brilliance_ , they say, as you hold your mother's hand, pinching your cheek like you are an ornament, a pretty jewel. You scream, loudly, and have to be carried out of the hall, your golden hair tangled with the butterflies your mother put there. _This is your first diplomatic incident, Itarillë_! says Uncle Findekanó, his braids twinkling in the Treelight. His eyes stray to Maitimo as he says this, like he is remembering something. Atar is not as happy. You hear his lectures ringing in your ears for days.

Amil sighs, quietly, and holds you in her arms as she picks the butterflies out of your hair, murmuring quiet words that are a mix of comfort and admonishment. You turn your face into her shoulder and sleep. 

The Helcaraxë is ice and snow and gleaming death, it is the shadow of your mother under your feet and the tears that freeze on Atar's cheeks, it is sparkling, it is brilliance. _Itarillë_ is the cold and the wind and the stars glittering on the soaring mountains of ice. You push your frozen solid hair behind your back and scream into the wastes until your voice is hoarse, Aunt Irissë standing behind you, glaring at anyone who might try to come near you.

Itarillë is a nice name. Itarillë is also a name that means ice, a name that means rays of light burning fiercely of glittering glass. 

Aunt Irissë once said that everything has its place of death. You stab Itarillë with the blade of your grief on the shores of Lake Mithrim and say to your father _I am Idril._

Idril is not a nice name. Idril is hard and cold and sharp enough to cut, is not soft and pretty and sparkling. You like it. You like all the ways Idril is taken seriously where Itarillë was not. 

Itarillë walked into a room and people's gazes glanced over her, seeing the hair and the face and thinking jewel, ornament, decoration. 

Idril says her name and stares at people with ice blue eyes, hair bound in buns, ferociously tight. Your smiles are knives. If eyes dismiss you they will be cut, bleeding out their dignity on the cold grey stones. 

Lady Lightning, the children say when they think you cannot hear. Lady Lightning is coming for you! 

(Stop, you say to Tuor. I have a plan.) 


	2. burning

You march into Sirion head held high, ragged banners flapping in the cold breeze that cuts you down to your bones. The child-queen of the Grey-elves is waiting, surrounded by a phalanx of lords. They all look like how you imagine you do, proud and lost and very alone, last scions of fallen cities. Tuor stands beside you, his eyes still burning with the reflected fires of Glorfindel and the Balrog as they fell into the cleft.  
You want to weep at the thought, of golden-bright Glorfindel and silvery Ecthelion, and most of all Atar, Atar, Atar!  
But weeping is for those who are weak, for those who must not find sanctuary for the remnants of their people. And you are Idril Celebrindal, Idril Elenwe’s daughter, Idril whose spine is steel and whose eyes are ice. Idril Celebrindal cannot cry.  
Itarille would have wept- would have thrown herself on Elwing’s mercy, clutching her child to her breast, and hoped that would be enough, already broken into pieces with the Tower of the King. You have lived on hope, and know that sometimes it is not enough. The dead of the Helcaraxe stare out of your eyes as you request sanctuary from this last of Elwe’s House, standing in her city with the light of that blood-soaked gem shining at her throat.

Elwing says yes.

When you were an almost-woman by the sea in Nevrast, on rainy days you used to sit and do embroidery as your Aunt Aredhel paced the long room. She would talk as she tore through the room, speaking wildly of the Ice, the trackless forests, the mountains of Beleriand. Sometimes her voice would be caught on your mother, and when soft Elenwe of distant memory spun through the room through Aredhel’s voice your embroidery would change, deviate, become flames and screams when before it was twirling flowers. The moment the rain stopped Aredhel would bang out of the door, tossing an invitation over her shoulder, then, imagining your refusal, a casual endearment then gone, clattering out through the gates heedless of a pale face framed with gold watching from the window.   
You used to fold the embroidery in half, carefully, then tuck it in the base of your sewing-basket, along with other scraps of horror, drowning figures, things stolen from the pain in your aunt’s voice.  
The sewing basket came with you to Gondolin, and to the house on the wall, buried unused in a cupboard. When your aunt dies you take it out, just once, and rip the piece that showed Aredhel, pacing the room, embers catching in her night-dark hair. Your screams echo over the white walls, stars above you. This time Aredhel does not stand behind you.  
The basket was lost when Gondolin fell. As you hurry down the passage, you wonder if the nightmares caught in thread came alive as it burnt itself, tearing into each other as they died. 

(You will wish, always, that you had gone with her as she went through the door, leaving you behind.)

This is what it means to be Idril Celebrindal: you are a symbol, a statue wrought of ice, a cold princess of endless destruction. You fill endless roles for endless people, but never yourself. Always daughter, niece, cousin, princess, memory. Someone who loves me. Someone who does not. Someone who will find me food, who will save me, who is known by extension. Turgon’s daughter. Fingolfin’s granddaughter. Tuor’s wife. Earendil’s mother.

This is what it means to be Idril Celebrindal, in the end: you are, always, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, i have updated! am so proud.   
> this idril is quite tired, quite lost. i had a lot of fun talking about idril and aredhel. you have no idea how many times i edited that section.  
> thank you for reading. please, please comment or kudos, it really makes my day and frankly i could use a bit of that at the moment (although honestly we all could, why on earth did i write such a depressing fic? who knows.)
> 
> catstycam x

**Author's Note:**

> so, basically, i love idril, and she would not get out of my head after mentioning her in more than beautiful. this just sort of happened.
> 
> this will be two chapters, the next talking about idril and aredhel, and their relationship, as well as being the stereotyped good girl and bad girl.   
> i wrote it for finwean ladies week on tumblr. it's just in the time zone! pretend it's day four.   
> thank you for reading! please comment, it makes my day and it's so wonderful to hear what you think.
> 
> catstycam xx


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